The Best Laid Plans of Mice
by A. B. Flarain
Summary: Was his entire life a lie? His grand scheme, derailed utterly by the person he least suspected. He knew nothing about them, nothing about ANY of them, apparently, and it's all turned into a circus. Even the most composed minds can crack when their sandcastle begins to crumble around them. Even the most innocuous characters can save the world.


"Ritsuko Akagi...the truth is..."

Whatever was said in those moments is now lost to time.

"Huh. You liar."

*click* *click*

Gendo's head unconsciously cocked to the side as he examined the apparently useless pistol in his hand. It was bizarre enough to stun him into silence for several seconds.

"Looking for these old man?"

The voice was familiar. Too familiar.

Gendo whirled his whole body around and saw the gloved, outstretched hand of his only friend, holding seven brass bullets.

"I couldn't let you shoot the good doctor; that would be so rude. After everything she's done to help you," Fuyutsuki drawled amicably as he tossed his handful of brass across the chamber; the seven little lumps of metal making a satisfying _plunk_ as they hit the pool of LCL.

"_Everything _she's done for you."

"Fuyutsuki what is—what are you doing?" Even the most composed minds can crack when their sandcastle begins to crumble around them.

"I'm getting things done. Something you know surprisingly little about," the aging professor replied without a crack in his friendly tone, as he undid the top button of his jacket and spoke into the collar.

"Everything all right on your side, Shinji?"

"Everything's taken care of up here, Mr. Fuyutsuki!" The voice of his son sang through the static of the poor comm link. "All nine targets destroyed at the core."

His son sounded downright _cheery_. But that couldn't be right. He saw how depressed the boy became at the death of the Fifth Child. How he would just sit listlessly in the Second's hospital room while she recovered from the mental contamination from the—

"_I_ took out more than him," a confident feminine voice came across the comm.

Well. Speaking of. She appeared to have her old spunk back.

"Yup." Shinji practically _chirped_. "Her five to my four."

And they weren't arguing. This day just got odder and od—

"But I still won't forget the way you jumped in to save me from that Lance," Asuka _purred_ at him. "I'll have to find _some way_ to thank you for that one."

"Is there anything else, Mr. Fuyutsuki?" Shinji sounded hopeful. "The tanks and planes and stuff all seem to be retreating."

Fuyutsuki cracked a smile. And honest-to-God (if Gendo had believed in God) smile. He hadn't seen the Professor smile in twelve years. And then he chuckled. As if the world wasn't literally ending all around him.

"Yes, take a break for now, Shinji," the professor's tone was warm and friendly, Gendo idly realized that he would have made an excellent grandfather, "Be ready for your last role in a few minutes. I'm just cleaning up here."

In point of fact, Gendo was about two seconds from completely losing his shit at this point. Instrumentality had just gone down the crapper, he'd might as well kiss Yui goodbye (as ironic as that sounded), he apparently knew nothing about any of his subordinates or his own family, and his closest friend and confidant had woken up today and decided to just flip him the bird, because f_ you, that's why. Nonetheless, he was Gendo Ikari, and Gendo did not lose his shit over such trivial things. So Gendo managed to force his mind to wrap around one question and plod forward into this mess.

"What—What did you do to my son?"

It was an odd place to start, and was not helped by the un-Gendolike stutter, but one had to start somewhere.

"Simple. I talked to him," Fuyutsuki replied, as if he were discussing the weather. He nonchalantly opened the left side of his coat and drew out a pistol as he continued, "It's amazing what can happen when you treat people like human beings."

"Fuyutsuki, what are you—"

"Convinced him to talk to the Second Child too," Fuyutsuki cut him off, absentmindedly patting his pockets, looking for something. Gendo relaxed when he saw the magazine missing from the pistol. "He's quite taken with her, you know," his face lit up as he pulled the magazine from his back pocket. "Her too. It's really sweet, you should see them."

"I think I get the picture," Gendo tried to butt in, his composure returning as he got used to the acid trip that was 'today,' "Now what—"

"Think it was around," Fuyutsuki cut him off again, "The twelfth angel;" the clip slid into place with a reverberating _click._ "Yes, that was it," he continued, idly playing with the safety, "Heard they had a great make-out session around the fourteenth. They've been lovey-dovey ever since."

Gendo was really trying to focus on _why_ Fuyutsuki had this gun, he really was. But with the Professor throwing around words like "make-out session" and "lovey-dovey," it was really hard. Finally pushing through the bizarre degeneration of his sensei's vocabulary, Gendo noticed that the old man had the gun pointed at him, casually, from the hip.

"You're going to shoot me, Professor? Now? After everything, it's come to this?" Gendo's tone was derisive, though not as confident as he would have liked, given his recent string of failures in predicting his sensei. Still, he was a master manipulator; the game was his to win.

"Don't be silly, Gendo," Fuyutsuki told him, the way a parent might explain flying reindeer to a confused child, "I'm not going to shoot you."

*_BANG_*

Gendo's eyes widened a fraction before he slumped to the ground, clutching at his side.

"She is."

A third form entered Terminal Dogma from the catwalk, gracefully landing next to the professor.

"Bastard," Major Katsuragi spat at the bleeding man on the floor, before looking up. "How ya holding up, Rits?" She asked, striding over to her friend, who only gave a sigh and slumped into the major.

Gendo didn't mind the pain. As his blood slowly pooled round him, the sting from his gut didn't really bother him. What was far more painful was the crushing weight of his failure; both at controlling instrumentality, and, apparently, at predicting anything about his own subordinates. Strangely, as the delirium from the pain set in and mixed with the utter confusion from the past few minutes, he felt oddly at peace, before the sound of a few short strides snapped him back to reality. The stoic, blue-haired face of Rei Ayanami came into focus.

"Rei . . . Why?" Was all he could ask.

"Kozo and I worked out an alternative solution, Commander. I feel sorry for your lost wife...for my...mother, but this solution is much more amenable to all. He has consulted with everyone: Doctor Akagi, Major Katsuragi, Ikari, even the Second Child. In short," she finished, "Professor Fuyutsuki set up you the bomb."

"Wh...What?" A dream, or drugs. Those were the only explanations.

"Um, ah," Fuyutsuki, broke in, "It's a quotation from a video game, I believe. One the Second Child introduced her to. Wing Zero, or something, I think. They bonded quite mightily over her Seca Neptune."

He really needed to stop trying. With every question he asked, the answers just added to the convoluted web of—why was Rei grabbing his arm?

"Excuse me," she said, holding his hand by the wrist, in front of her, "I have need of this."

To everyone's surprise and mild disgust, she proceeded to shove his hand entirely into her abdomen.

"Wha—AAAAHHHHGGGHHH!" Gendo's question was cut off by his scream of agony, as his hand was removed cleanly at the wrist. He huddled into the fetal position, grasping uselessly at the missing limb.

Rei strode back across the platform. The speaker from Fuyutsuki's collar crackled to life again.

"Professor? You there? I've got the package."

"Ah, Kaji. Right on time."

Kaji? Wasn't he dead? WAS HIS ENTIRE LIFE A LIE? The man was more resilient than a cockroach.

"Imported all the way from Germany," Kaji continued, "Special ordered for the apocalypse."

"Then everything is ready. Shall we begin?" Rei asked quietly. Fuyutsuki nodded, before lifting up his lapel again as Rei strode away from him.

"Shinji, it's time for the final bit," he said, matter-of-factly, but gently, "Rei is on her way up to you now."

"Okay, Professor, I'm ready."

"_Gott_, Third, can't you try to sound cooler than that?"

"S-sorry. Let's save the world!"

"It's a work in progress."

Reaching the end of the small platform before the slumped, crucified body of the second angel, Rei slowly began to rise in the air.

"Brace yourselves everyone," Fuyutsuki cautioned, "Things are going to look a bit weird for a while."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Misato asked, still supporting her mentally and emotionally exhausted friend.

"Get ready for some really trippy shit," Fuyutsuki translated for her.

Gendo's mind reeled. So they were _still_ initiating the impact? Then what was all this about? A final "screw you" for being such a manipulative bastard? A little late revenge for getting to Yui first? _What?_ He stared at the cauterized stub of his hand, wavering on the edge of consciousness. By now Rei had made it to the bleeding giant. A few meters away from her form, Lilith's body warped and sprung out, completely consuming Rei's small body. There was a pause, while nothing happened. Then the rumbling began as Lilith hopped down from the cross. Pausing once again, the white giant's form began to morph. Within a few seconds, the giant visage of Rei Ayanami was staring back at them from atop a giant naked body. She flashed them a squint-eyed smile and a V-sign, with a cheerful, "Here I go!" before ascending through the roof.

What. The hell.

What the hell?

What the _hell_.

She was just screwing with him now, wasn't she?

Silence reigned in Terminal Dogma for several seconds.

"Now what?" Misato finally spoke.

"Now," Fuyutsuki replied, crossing over to Gendo, "We wait." He sat, cross-legged, next to his bleeding pupil. "Werther's Original, Ikari?" He offered the hard candy to the dying man.

Gendo blinked.

"Your loss," Fuyutsuki shrugged, popping the caramel into his mouth. Silence reigned once again as they all waited.

* * *

How was he not dead yet? Granted, he was not a medical doctor, but one would think a bullet in the gut would have been fatal by _now_. Was Katsuragi _that_ good of a marksman? Her file would beg to differ. Especially if she was drinking as much as her surveillance detail suggested. But, then again, so far today, literally everything the man ever knew since Second Impact was turning out to be false. So who knew? Maybe she made a shot from 200 feet away _with a pistol_ that somehow missed _all_ his vital organs, but still caused a decent amount of bleeding. Sure. Made about as much sense as the rest of today.

"Commander Fuyutsuki?" The timid voice of Maya Ibuki finally crackled over the comm.

"Go ahead bridge," He said blithely.

"It looks like it's finished." Aoba reported, "Our sensors aren't showing anything anymore."

"Confirmed, Commander," Hyuuga concurred. "They're on their way down to you now."

"Perfect," Fuyutsuki replied, rising. "Only a few more minutes now."

* * *

Finally, footsteps reverberated through the cavernous room. It had seemed like an eternity to Gendo, those three minutes. As he flopped his head to the side, his eyes bugged out of his head.

Yui.

_Yui_.

**_YUI!_**

What? HOW? When? WHY? HUZZLEBZZFTTT.

What.

Gendo's sanity was threatening to collapse in on itself as he gazed at the group before him. Yes, Yui was the first to catch his eye, leading the group, but to her right, somehow, was Kyoko Zepplin Soryu. Kaji trailed slightly behind on her left, carrying a gently sleeping Rei Ayanami wrapped in a yellow blanket. Shinji was further off to the left, Asuka hanging off his arm. The bridge personnel brought up the rear.

"Hi Professor," Yui greeted.

"Good to see you again, Yui." The Professor's grin threatened to split his face in half. "I'm glad to see your plan worked, Kaji," he added, glancing at Kyoko as he started to cross over to them when an entirely unexpected face peeked out from behind Kaji.

"Hello everyone," Kaworu Nagisa said sheepishly, "I hope my presence here is not troublesome."

Asuka sent him a death-glare and tightened her grip on the Third's arm, but otherwise said nothing.

Rei lifted her head from Kaji's chest as Fuyutsuki reached them. "I took some liberties with the plan Professor; I hope you don't mind. Circumstances changed a bit once I was inside."

"Of course not," he told her warmly, ruffling her hair, "You did very, very well today."

She smiled deliriously up at him, and returned to resting.

Yui slowly approached him. She was standing over him now. It was so strange, this was what he worked so hard for, what he had written off as an impossibility, now right before him. She cleared her throat. Something wet hit his cheek.

"You're an idiot," She told him matter-of-factly, "I practically gave you the answer on a silver platter, and you still didn't get it." She sighed, "We're so lucky the Professor wasn't so dense."

"W-what?" he croaked.

There was something else he could have done? There was a way out of this mess? There was a _third option_?

"She's referring to the salvage operation," Fuyutsuki supplied, "When Shiji materialized from Unit One's core."

"We were all so happy to have the dummy back," Asuka cut in, "no one thought about how it didn't make any _sense_."

"If you recall," Ritsuko explained, "The LCL from the entry plug had spilled out already. Logically speaking, Shinji's body couldn't have materialized. The material that made it up was a puddle on the floor."

At this point Rei picked her head up from Kaji's chest again. "LCL is far more versatile that you gave it credit for."

Kaworu stepped forward slightly and put his hand on her arm, "I can explain the rest," he told her. She smiled wearily and slumped over once again.

"It is the primordial soup from which all Lillim life was made," he explained, "To put it simply, it's merely chemicals. But it has everything you would need to create a body. And the light of Shinji's soul gave those chemicals his shape."

Asuka let out a low, feral growl at the mention of 'his shape.'

"Asuka, behave."

"Sorry, Mama."

Gendo swallowed hard as he took in all this information. "So that's when..." He rasped.

"That's when I put together this plan," Fuyutsuki supplied, "Make no mistake, I was planning on throwing a monkey wrench in your apocalypse from the very beginning. I'd have to be a gigantic douche to let you end the world just so you could see your wife again. No offense."

"None taken," Yui replied.

"So from that point on," Fuyutsuki continued, "I began to see how it could all work out. I consulted secretly with Rei and Ritsuko on the nature of Lilith, and, well, things just fell into place after that."

"And we all had to keep up the act like we were at each other's throats," Shinji piped up gleefully, "And one step away from cracking."

"Sorry Daddy," Rei told him with a patronizing smile.

"Fuyut...h-how..." Gendo choked on his own breath.

"You seem to forget I was actually a professor of metaphysical biology," he chuckled, "I taught Yui everything she knows." He smiled at her, "Granted, none of this would have ever been possible without her brilliance, but still, it wasn't too difficult for me to pick up the scraps she left me."

Rei patted Kaji on the front of his shoulder, who gently let her down. She sighed. "I believe it will be quickest for me to explain the rest." She tightened the blanket around her shoulders and walked over.

"The creator has tremendous power over her creations," Rei explained coldly, "It was a simple matter to pull the souls I needed into the Chamber of Guf. Mother's, and half of Mrs. Soryu's, were within easy reach. Kaji was kind enough to bring the other half from Germany."

"Glad my crazy hunch was of service," Kaji threw in.

"Thanks to the genetic material from your hand, I was able to more easily fashion a body for myself," Rei continued her explanation, "I am now fully human, _Father_." She half-spit-half-snorted the word.

Tears were forming underneath Gendo's glasses. He was so lost, and in so much pain, he honestly didn't know what else to do at this point. So he just started crying.

Rei looked over to Kaworu. "Once I had absorbed my Other, I was surprised to find a piece of the fifth child still present in his soul. I remembered how important he was to Ikari, so I...improvised."

"Yes, I'm very excited to hear this part," Fuyutsuki cut in, "I'd love to know how you pulled off something so amazing."

"Kaworu's body already contained the DNA of our old—" Several words flashed through Rei's mind before she settled, "_friend_, Lorenz Keel, but I needed the genetic material from a female to properly fashion a body for him. So I...borrowed...some from Miss Ibuki."

"I have been touched by God," Maya said hazily from the back.

"Ayanami has given me a wonderful gift," Kaworu said admiring and flexing the fingers on his new body's hands, "A second chance."

"Speaking of," Yui finally broke in, "what should we do with this turd?" She gave Gendo a small kick in the shoulder for emphasis. "I know he's my husband and all, but I'm finding it really hard right now to muster up the sympathy to take out that bullet you put in him, Misato."

"I'd say an ignoble, forgotten death in a cave suits the scruffy bastard perfectly," Kyoko agreed.

"I just don't care anymore," Ritsuko put in wearily.

Fuyutsuki frowned, but said nothing.

"What do you think, Shinji?" his mother asked, "I'd say he's hurt you more than anyone here; you more than anyone should have a say."

Shinji was quiet for a long while, looking at his shoes. Asuka frowned quizzically and tried to read his face, but said nothing.

Surprisingly, Gendo was rather fine with this outcome. Probably because he resigned himself to the loss ever since Fuyutsuki pulled the gun on him, but also because, at least this way, everybody else was happy. Small consolation now, yes, but at least it was something. As his breath became more labored, and black hovered at the edge of his vision, he found it surprisingly easy to be magnanimous; Yui was back, and she could dote on Shinji, and even though he wouldn't be around to be with her, which wasn't that the whole point in the first place? Damn, it was hard to think when you were dying.

"I think..."Shinji spoke up at last, before taking a deep breath and looking up, "I think we should let him live."

All the eyes on him widened in surprise, but he needed no prompting to continue.

"I mean...we've already won, right? Rei was able to fix everything up, and we all got our happy endings, right?" He squeezed Asuka's hand to emphasize what he meant. "So it just seems...really petty to kill him now. We've already won."

Yui smiled warmly at her son, and sighed. "Alright then," was all she said as she beckoned with her hand. The bridge crew trundled up from the back with a medical cart. As they began basic first aid on Gendo, Asuka sighed and shook her head at Shinji.

"You're too good for your own good...idiot."

Shinji just gave her a lopsided smile.

"Well, Asuka," Yui said, looking over at Kyoko, "I'm glad to see you did better than either of us ever did."

They all smiled as the two pilots stared dreamily at each other.

A thought struck Yui, and she turned to Rei.

"What about you, Rei? I'm afraid there's a lot I'm going to have to teach you now, since I'm sure this buffoon didn't."

"Well," Rei replied, licking her lips, "I do have _some_ of my memories from before, now. So I know I have a bit of a history."

Yui raised an eyebrow at her. Rei looked at Kaworu.

"I was thinking of getting back together with my ex."

Kaworu swallowed thickly. "R-really?" he croaked, eyes misting. "After all I did? After everything _both_ of us did?"

"Oh, just shut up, bishie-boy," Asuka cut in harshly, "We all forgive you, stupid. My favorite idiot's been rubbing off on us."

Fuyutsuki crossed over and put his hand on Kaworu's shoulder. "My boy, you're beginning to understand," he told him gently, "a lesson it took me far too long to learn; but I thank God every day that I learned before it was too late." He looked around at all of them. "The greatest gift you can ever give _anyone_...is redemption."

He looked down at Gendo.

* * *

A/N

WARNING: Long Author's note is long.

So I was watching _End of Evangelion_ again to do some research for _The Laws of Life_, when I realized something: Fuyutsuki is a completely superfluous character to the story. And I don't mean in the same way that characters like the bridge bunnies are; they could easily be replaced by faceless techs, or by computers, or even by Misato and Ritsuko with a little hand waving. I mean that you could _completely remove_ Fuyutski from the story, and it would _make no difference_. So far as I can tell, his only purpose is to: 1.) Chew out the pilots after the Israfel fight, which adds nothing and could be removed without anyone noticing. 2.) Be the source of the flashbacks for the early years of Yui, Gendo, GEHIRN and NERV; but ask yourself: if they just cut to an episode of pure flashbacks, would anyone have noticed? 3.) Serve as the motivation behind another character's death later in the series, but there was no short supply of reasons to kill him, and even giving no reason would have been no less believable, and even made a neat little mystery. 4.) Serve as an exposition dump during _End_, but given that the bridge bunnies seem just as capable of throwing out weird technical terms to serve as explanation, they could easily serve that purpose. That, and nothing any of them say in that scene makes _any kind of sense_. Seriously, I've looked it up on the Wiki: This is the Tree of Life, this is the Chamber of Gouf, we have no idea what any of this shit does. So again, take him out, doesn't really change much.

Then I had another thought: of all the people in that show, he's actually _in the best position_ to derail the whole thing and save the world. He knows what the whole plan is; he's clearly convinced Gendo he's going along with it, and so would have less scrutiny; he knows how NERV works and would be able to cover his tracks better than anyone; and most importantly, he's a professor of metaphysical biology, and the one who taught the person that came up with all the magic pseudo-science to begin with. So not only is he best poised to throw a spanner in the works to derail the plan, he's _also_ best poised to come up with a _better idea_ than "F_ the world, I wanna bone my dead wife."

So that's where this fic came from: "What if Fuyutski _wasn't_ a pointless character, and _wasn't_ a giant douchebag that is totally fine with Armageddon, because some guy he's kinda-sorta friends with is lonely." It should be noted that this is my preferred Fannon for a happy ending to this series, so you will probably see similar ideas popping up in _Laws_, and any other _Eva_ stuff I write (because whoever came up with the idea that "It's Evangelion, it has to be depressing!" deserves a kick in the dick.) This is also why I will probably never write anything that contains Shinji x Rei: not because I dislike the pairing, but because my preferred way to avert Third Impact winds up with them being full siblings.

This was originally intended to just be a humorous little deconstruction, like, "Fuyutski, the useless character from the show, has like, three conversations and saves the world," but I felt like I kept needing to explain more and more of _why_ I thought it worked. I think it devolved too much into explanation and lore and pseudo-science because of it, and I'm sure there are some Eva Geeks out there who could poke holes in my logic, but I hope the few jokes I could sprinkle in still made it enjoyable. Since the original idea also included giving _everyone_ a happy ending, I just kept going with reviving people, and having to BS something together for why. I couldn't fit in a pairing for Ritsuko, mostly because I couldn't find a way to make it funny. So pair her with Maya, or Kozo, or Gendo, or whoever your preferred ship is, in your own head. I did get to the end and realize I left Rei out in the cold, and I still feel that the pairing there is a little shoe-horned, but there was no plausible way for me to get Kensuke down there, so...yeah. I considered just dropping it, but I couldn't resist the schmaltzy little bit about redemption it made for.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, I hope this made sense, and I hope you feel inspired to make more of the side characters from your favorite media.


End file.
